I'd hate to see you spend the time, money, and effort in doing an HPDE, only to learn that your oil temps reach a critical laps. Given this is your first event, it's unlkely you will see dangerously high oil temps, but if you continue tracking plan on that oil cooler. Nissan has covered engines that have oil coolers, provided the oil cooler didn't fall apart, leak..etc...causing the engine failure.

With regards to your insurance coverage don't take anyone's word on this forum. The only word, is the word of your agent/policy wording. Call them for the answer, as they are the ONLY persons that can answer that question.

With respect to brakes, the biggest area for improvement I see on students from beginners to very advanced students is braking: Primarily, they are not utilizing them to 100% of their capacity. Throw out everything you know about braking and driving on the street. When the brakes are applied I expect my neck to snap forward. :) Everyone is always taught to be smooth, but remember you also have to be fast and deliberate with your inputs with the controls. Smooth, decisive, fast.

Get an Oil cooler... it only helps the car and your ability to be able to push the car with out getting the engine too hot.

That's great advice! Thank you so much. This thread has taught me some new and, I think, important things.

Great thread.

That's a good idea, Josh, I hadn't thought of that. A reasonable compromise: buy it from Stillen, have the dealer do the install, gain a little bit of "good faith" warranty protection with the dealer but save a fair amount of $$$. Josh is always on our side. :tiphat:

It all really comes down to the track, temp of the day, and how you drive.
It's always better to be safe rather than sorry, so I would install the cooler for certain, no reason not to.
It would really suck to spend the money on the track day, spend all that time getting out there only to run a few laps, hit limp mode and be done for the day.

also, most of our customers who track occasionally do an oil change before and after the track, due to the oil temp issue, again, for no reason other than to be safer.

I would also highly recomend running stainless steel brake lines for more consistant performance, higher fluid, such as motul RBF600, and better brake pads than the oem. If you do this you should 1) extend the life of the brakes on the track (depending on how you drive of course), and 2) gain a more consistant feel throughout the day for better lap times etc...

I did my first track day with the Z in October, Road America. No oil cooler and no Limp mode in any of the 5 20 minute sessions I did. Of course I was in the beginners group so I didn't go "all out". I also took it easy on the long main straight, I shifted up to 6th to give the engine some time to cool down and to let all the big boys in their Corvettes and Vipers pass me. But the one time I pushed a bit harder for a full lap, the oil temp did come awefully close to the limp mode temp. So based on my experience: you should be fine for your first track day, just keep an eye on your oil temp and keep your revs down once in a while to let things cool down.

Oh, yeah, brakes: you do have to upgrade your fluid and pads. I can happily recccomend the Carbotech XP10/8 pads I used.

But as I want to try a little harder next year, I have started to order the parts for my DIY oil cooler, lines are in, cooler is next, i should be done by the time the snow melts :)

I did my first track day in the 370 yesterday at Spring Mountain. Outside temp was about 65-67 degrees. I installed an AE cooler last week, and I was never able to get the oil temp above 220 on the track yesterday. There is some debate going on and some discussion that the true circulating oil temp in the engine is 15-20 degrees higher than what the sensor is reading (after installing a cooler), so my true temp may be closer to 240 max. For spirited daily driving (just in the last week) it is hard to get it above 190 without a cooler cover in place. The cooler works very well, and adds a lot of peace of mind. I also just swapped out front pads (left OEM lines/fluid/rotors/rear pads) per suggestion of another more experienced 370 driver and I gotta tell you it worked great for what I am doing. Takes all of about 10 minutes to swap out front pads with the Akebono Sport brake calipers. The only problem I had was fuel starvation. I did the first 20-min track session with no problem, and made it about 3/4 of the way through the 2nd 20-min session before experiencing fuel starvation. Fortunately it kept running and I took it easy the rest of the lap into the pits. Fuel was about 5 dots below full at that point. Thereafter I topped off the fuel tank in between each session. Kind of annoying to have to run with so much fuel in the tank.